May 31, 2010

I was certainly more raised on baseball than I was on hip hop.  I was whiffing at balls on a tee for my preschool squad and Baltimore choppin’ in the batting cages before Biggie and Pac ever started beefin’.  I knew California Love and was vaguely familiar with some other more popular rap of the day, but didn’t really get into hip hop until my older brother Griff played me Dr. Dre’s seminal Chronic 2001.  It was labeled parental advisory and I’m not sure how he even acquired it but knowing what a vile opinion our parents held of rap music we didn’t dare bump that shit in the house.  The only place we could safely blast such depraved filth was in Griff’s Ford Exploder and I’ll be damned if we weren’t bumpin’ the Doc just about every day on the way to school my 8^th grade year, two years after I had actually stopped playing baseball.

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